Ease Mates Into Better Board And Card Games

It’s Christmas. You’re friends and family are together for that special time of the year to give, receive and eat. Once all the presents have been passed around and the food consumed, someone recommends you pull out Monopoly or Scrabble to pass the time. You sigh, knowing there’s a whole other world of board and card games your relatives are oblivious to. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to gently introduce them to this fabulous alternate universe?

It’s no good telling people about these games — no, if you want to get someone hooked, you’re going to have to dive right in. Don’t worry, you can do this without scaring people off, you just need the right games in the correct order.

1. Getting Started: Settlers Of Catan

Many of you will probably recognise Settlers Of Catan in the lead image. Designed by Klaus Teuber and released over one and a half decades ago, it has since become a staple in the homes of even the slightly ambitious board game player. If you believe cardboard and wood to be relics of another generation, you can grab it online for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. There’s even a Microsoft Surface version, which you can view clip of here.

Thanks to its widespread fame, Catan is the first game I recommend bringing out when everyone’s in the mood for dice (or cards, if you have this add-on) and tokens. Catan has a way of tapping into the same compulsive undercurrents as Sim City and FarmVille. Who doesn’t like building towns, roads and haggling over the value of sheep and iron? The concepts of the game are easy to understand and aren’t rooted in science fiction or fantasy. If you own the expansions, keep them out for the first few games as people adjust to the rules.

2. Moving On: Munchkin

Steve Jackson’s Munchkin is as straightforward as it gets. No board, just cards — and two decks at that. Players take turns kicking in doors, searching for treasure, fighting monsters (with or without the aid of their companions) and forming shaky, ad-hoc alliances to gang up on the player with the most equipment and highest level.

The witty card names are one thing, but it’s the excellent, approachable art by John Kovalic that keeps the mood casual, even though you’re playing a super-condensed and lightweight version of Dungeons and Dragons, minus the dungeon master.

Enjoyment of Munchkin and perhaps the core to its gameplay is the wheeling and dealing that occurs between players — something never outlined in hard ink in the rulebook. Balance is naturally kept as players do almost anything they can to target and bring down players close to winning the game. You can interact at almost any time to swing things in the favour of the parties you like most. It’s this free and loose gameplay that keeps things interesting… and allows you to alter your allegiances at the drop of a hat.

Munchkin not only has loads of expansions available, but different themed versions, from Cthulhu to vampires, ninjas and Star Wars. I find vanilla Munchkin is the best, but if you know a subtype (say vamps for the Twilight fanatics) that will go down well with your friends, don’t be afraid to pick it up.

3. Death Comes To All: Last Night On Earth

Zombies. You think their time has passed and yet, movies, books and games that pillage the genre continue to do well. With JMS’ interpretation of World War Z on the horizon, now’s as good a time as any to show your friends exactly what being in a undead apocalypse is like, and Last Night On Earth will do exactly that.

Some may recommend Zombies!!! from Twilight Creations as their walking dead game of choice, but I found the difficulty of the expansions off-putting and the gameplay lacking depth. Definitely a solid concept, but Last Night On Earth will see play again and again, its rules are easier to understand and well, someone with a brain, not a set of pre-defined reactions, gets to play the zombies.

LNOE hooks into all the stereotypes. Players can select their hero of choice, from the bat-swinging jock to the cop with the only firearm. There’s the mysterious outsider — nicknamed by our playing group as “Soup Can Sam” in honour of Psych‘s James Roday — and the priest whose faith is a tangible force that can combat the damned.

The game benefits from being closer to a traditional board game than some of the other recommendations here. At the start, one or two players take control of the zombies (though I’ve found having just one player provides a more consistent zombie threat and means the survivors won’t always be privy to your plans), while the others pick from a pool of survivors. A scenario is chosen to provide either the zombies or survivors with a goal and time limit and the board is constructed from five pieces, taken from a larger pool, so play is somewhat randomised between games.

It’s then a matter of getting the job done before you’re eaten alive or the survivors escape. Special cards give the survivors options, and come in the form of weapons, action denial and healing. The zombie player’s cards are more potent and can completely wreck a survivor’s day. The zombie player also gets cards constantly, so it’s important they cultivate their hand for the final stand-off.

The game naturally creates a pumping narrative, thanks to the real photos of the survivors and their imagined quirks, generated entirely by the player’s imaginations, based on the survivors’ assortment of grimaces. It’s cheesy, but not overly so, and enjoyment is equal parts gameplay and engaging in wild tales — how did Billy die in the church, or why Sheriff Anderson can’t seem to fire his gun without dropping it constantly.

4. Up A Notch: Dominion

From blasting zombies to managing a fictitious kingdom, Dominion is another game that is almost entirely card-based. The objective is to amass victory points, which are purchased using copper, silver and gold coin cards. To get these cards, you need to build a deck of actions that allows you to do more with your turn. These actions are purchased from a common pool in the centre of the playing area. The thing is, you don’t build your deck before the game… you do it as you play.

This introduces a dynamic where you must decide when to stop building your deck to enhance your purchasing power and start buying victory points. Because the game ends when the largest source of victory points is consumed, if you don’t make the shift fast enough, you’ll find yourself on the bottom rung of the scoring ladder.

The issue with victory points is that they don’t do anything until the game ends, so they’re dead cards while the game is in progress. Some cards do provide both actions and victory points, but sacrifice power for versatility.

The twelve card piles players can collectively build their decks from is either randomised at the game’s start, or pre-selected based on suggestions in the manual. Obviously, different cards give access to different combos, so analysing what’s available and sticking to a strategy will often see you come out in front.

Dominion is actually an easy game to understand and you could even debut it to your friends ahead of Catan. But, I feel that they’ll better appreciate it subtleties once they have the above games under their belts.

If, however, your mates prefer Uno to Monopoly, then this would be the perfect introductory game.

5. The Holy Space Grail: Race For The Galaxy

Our final entry is the fantastic Race For The Galaxy by designer Thomas Lehmann. It’s sci-fi and the learning curve is excessively steep but, once you have your friends hooked, you can look forward to many, many days of play as you explore every combination of cards and the various victory conditions.

The game shares many elements with the equally popular San Juan. Considering Lehmann helped with its creation, it’s not surprising. Given the San Juan is itself a well-designed game, its influence is very welcome.

Essentially, there’s just one deck with a few support cards. Each round, players select from a set of “phases” that determine what activities will occur during that round. These are chosen in secret and revealed simultaneously. Players who picked a phase get a special bonus, such as drawing extra cards or buying cards for less, while those who didn’t still get to engage in the activity, just without a bonus. In this way, it becomes important to figure out what phases your opponents will play, and leverage that to maximise your card drawing/playing.

The game relies heavily on symbols that, at first glance, will make weaker gamers ill. It’s almost like learning another language. But, once you pick it up, reading cards becomes a simple affair and the consistency of design and usage of symbols means that you don’t have to read reams of rules text every time you play a card. You can just look at it and understand exactly how it’s meant to function. From there, you can start building elaborate card combos to power a point or draw “engine” — a repeatable set of actions that gains you lots of cards or points.

Like Dominion, it relies on victory points to determine the winner, but they can be gained and produced in many ways, and figuring out those alternate paths is half the fun. I’ve left RFTG last because it is the most alienating to the average person — not only is it sci-fi, but it’s not an easy game to learn.

That said, it is by far the most rewarding. Seeing that glimmer of understanding in someone’s eyes as the rules click in will provide you with all the warm fuzziness you could need this Christmas.

The Game Of Life Is For Losers

There’s nothing quite as bonding as cracking out your favourite board game and engaging in some friendly competition. But you don’t need to be limited by the classics. They are good for a reason, but with so many choices of deeper games that reward you handsomely for mastering their nooks and crannies, you’d be mad not to pick one or two up and convince your friends and family that there’s more to the world of board and card games than collecting $200 or snagging a triple-word score.

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This is eerie - my family began with Settlers of Catan and has since introduced Munchkin. I would suggest, however, starting off your questions with any expansion packs for Settlers right off the bat - it makes it much more enjoyable for all parties and saves a lot of beating around the bush.

I wouldn't start with Catan any more. Too much luck, and too much frustration when people get blocked/bad dice rolls. Ticket to Ride is a better entry game, and I'd skip Munchkin and go straight to Dominion after that.

I'd recommend San Juan (the card version of Puerto Rico), definitely, and Pandemic. The idea of a co-operative game will be a revelation.

No Arkham Horror? Definitely at the more complex end of the spectrum but this game (especially with a couple of expansions) is both rich, deep and great fun. The 'co-op vs the game' angle means either everyone wins or loses, which makes it a very friendly game. Until everyone gets devoured by Cthulhu of course.